Zero Carbon: Rethinking the Future

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Zero Carbon Britain: Rethinking the Future details a technically robust scenario in which the UK has risen to the challenge of climate change by rapidly reducing greenhouse gas emissions to net zero.

It demonstrates that we can do this using only currently available technology, whilst maintaining a modern standard of living, eating well, and meeting our energy demand at all times with 100% renewable UK energy sources.

By making changes to our buildings, transport systems and behaviour, and by investing in a variety of renewable energy generation technologies suited to the UK (without a nuclear component), we can provide a reliable zero carbon energy supply without negatively impacting on quality of life.

This latest report includes the research from across a range of disciplines, and integrates new detailed research in two key areas:

Balancing supply and demand

Hourly modelling of the UK energy system in our scenario to show how we can ‘keep the lights on’ with a 100% renewable energy system. This was done using ten years of weather data to simulate our renewable electricity supply and the demand for electricity during, for example periods of cold and warm weather.

Land use and low carbon diets

Modelling of low and minimal carbon diets. Dietary analysis based on nutritional profiling, food group balance and government dietary recommendations enables us to provide a healthy average diet for the UK while monitoring the implications of various dietary choices on greenhouse gas emissions and land use requirements.

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